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Anastasia Vasilyeva, 36, a doctor, is the founder and leader of the “Alliance of Doctors”, an independent organization that brings together more than four thousand doctors and nurses throughout Russia. The Alliance was born in 2018 to denounce the inefficiencies of the Russian healthcare system and is now active in supporting healthcare personnel across the country during the coronavirus crisis. He was one of the first doctors to help Alexey Navalny in Omsk after his poisoning and to negotiate with the Russian authorities for his transfer to the Charité Hospital in Berlin. With Alexey Navalny he shared many battles for freedom and rights in the Russian Federation, especially in these months of the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Can you tell us something about your story?
I am a doctor and an ophthalmologist and have never been in politics. Three years ago I treated Alexey Navalny for severe damage to his right eye caused by an antiseptic dye, known as “Zelyonka”, in the eye by strangers. It was the first attack he suffered: less serious than Tomsk’s assassination attempt in August this year with Novachok, but he still ran the risk of losing his sight. Then, in April 2018, the hospital where I worked (Moscow Ophthalmological Research Institute) decided to fire, for reasons of financial rationalization, more than 30 medical specialists. Many of them were offered jobs as lab technicians or even simple cleaners. We were desperate and we began to write petitions to the entire political and governmental world. We got no response. The only one who supported us was Alexey Navalny, who offered us free legal support with his team from the Anticorruption Foundation. After a long legal battle, we were able to win in court and reinstate most of the doctors in the hospital.
So, from that moment on, your political commitment began and the Medici Alliance was born?
Yes. I started receiving phone calls from doctors and nurses in all regions of Russia who reported abuses and inefficiencies. Then we registered the Doctors’ Alliance as an independent union and today we have 41 regional offices from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok and more than four thousand members.
Can you tell us what is really happening in Russia during the coronavirus pandemic? What is the state of the health system?
Public health in Russia is in serious trouble. Perhaps in Moscow and St. Petersburg the level of quality of services is acceptable, but as soon as we leave the big cities, the situation in deep Russia is dramatic. At the beginning of the pandemic, most doctors and nurses in suburban hospitals worked without any protection. That is why we have promoted various fundraising campaigns and started distributing masks, gloves, coveralls to nurses and doctors across the country.
What was the reaction of the authorities to your initiative?
For Putin, the problem does not seem to be the emergency of the coronavirus, but to silence those like us who denounce the inefficiencies of the health system. We are just trying to tell the truth. Every day on our site (https://alyansvrachey.ru) we tell the health reality of deep Russia, denouncing inefficiencies, waste, mistakes in the fight against the pandemic and more.
The Russian government continues to claim that the situation in the country is under control. Is there a minimization of the problem in your opinion?
The Putin regime lies about the real situation. There is no effective diagnostic system and there are no reliable statistics on the number of infected and deceased. Thanks to our independent network of doctors, news reaches us every day about the state of the pandemic in Russia and the situation remains extremely worrying. And the authorities, instead of trying to better manage the emergency, seem to be only concerned with managing and filtering the news about the real situation.
She was also arrested while carrying protective medical tools to a hospital. Can you tell us what happened?
We were taking several boxes of masks, suits and various protection systems to a hospital in the Veliky Novgorod region, 400 km from Moscow, when the police violently blocked us. They arrested me, I spent one night in jail, and then I was released on bail. It is clear that there was no violation of the law and the arrest was only intended to exert strong psychological pressure on us not to continue supporting the doctors and nurses.
In Italy and Europe, there was a feeling that Putin wants to use the pandemic to destabilize the West. What do you think of the aid to Italy and Serbia managed by the Russian army a few months ago?
There was a joke that circulated in Russia at the beginning of the pandemic and said: “in our hospitals there are no more masks because Putin has sent them all to Europe and the United States.” In principle, I am not opposed to international cooperation initiatives, but I must point out that those initiatives were only a form of propaganda: a political demonstration by Putin to demonstrate Russian “superiority” when our healthcare system is in disarray.
Is Putin trying to show that authoritarian states are more effective in handling this crisis than democratic ones?
The coronavirus emergency is further worsening Russia’s already weak rights standards. The police have implemented the “confinement” many times in a violent way: elderly people beaten because they were caught shopping, arrests of young people to walk with the dog and then repression against our organization of doctors … All this, however, is a sign of the weakness of the regime and there is no effectiveness in the fight against the pandemic.
Do you think the global pandemic crisis could have an impact on Russia? What is your vision for the future of Russia?
It is too early to say, but I believe that the Covid-19 pandemic will open our eyes to the real health and political situation in the country. The change may not be immediate, but I am optimistic and believe that in a couple of years Russia will never be the same again. Yes, a radical change is possible.
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